


Hic Volvo non Volvet

by Kroki_Refur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-10
Updated: 2007-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27557194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kroki_Refur/pseuds/Kroki_Refur
Summary: Another day, another curse. Except this one's not quite what Sam expected.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	Hic Volvo non Volvet

At first, Sam thinks Dean’s just been turned into a girl again, and can’t help rolling his eyes, because he hasn't slept for two days and the last thing he needs is another job and come _on_ , like _that’s_ the most original curse ever anyway. He makes sure to check quickly that he’s still got all the equipment he’s used to having (because for some reason, the only thing that people seem to think is funnier than turning Dean into a girl is turning them _both_ into girls), then starts clambering to his feet, holding his hand out to Dean and getting ready to mock him for the next three days or however long it is the curse lasts.  
  
Only thing is, when Dean stands up, he’s tall. He’s not just tall for a _girl_ , he’s tall for a _person_ , only about an inch shorter than Sam, and Sam’s pretty sure that’s wrong, because turning Dean into a girl ought to have made him shorter, right? And the other thing is, every time this has happened before ( _way_ too many times), girl Dean has pretty much looked like – well, like Dean. Except a girl. In fact, that’s always been one of the richest seams of mockery, the fact that Dean’s face really doesn’t need to change much to look totally feminine. The Dean that’s standing in front of him, though, the Dean with jet-black hair and grey eyes and a face that’s almost broader than it is high – this Dean looks like a stranger.  
  
Sam suppresses a shudder and discards the notion that this isn’t Dean, because no-one would go to the trouble of coming up with a curse that just traded his brother for some random person, right? “Um,” he says, suddenly at a loss. “You look... different.”  
  
Dean looks down at himself. He’s wearing some kind of weird black vinyl dress thing that’s cut like something out of _Bewitched_ , that’s kinda weird, too, because usually the clothes don’t change. He works his mouth for a moment, reaching up to touch his jaw with a frown like he’s not sure what it’s for, then coughs.  
  
“Yes,” he says. “I do.” His voice sounds different, too, throatier, deep for a woman.  
  
“Dean,” says Sam, feeling the unease growing in his stomach, “this is really freaky. Why are you so different?”  
  
Dean looks at him, face set somewhere between confusion and wonder. “You’re Sam,” he says, and the _s_ is thick, like his tongue is swollen. All thoughts of mockery fade from Sam’s mind.  
  
“Yes,” he says carefully, “and you’re Dean.” _Please tell me you’re Dean_.  
  
Dean looks around the parking lot, brings up a hand to swipe at his face a couple of times, then digs his fingers into his hair. “No,” he says, and Sam thinks _oh shit_ and _where’s Dean?_ and _please, please let him be OK_ , and then the woman – a _real_ woman, he supposes, and that’s weird, to have to suddenly make that adjustment – points to a dark-green Volvo and says “Dean’s there.”  
  
Sam is officially freaked now, and he edges over to the car, keeping his eye on the woman the whole time. Problem is, the car’s empty, no sign of Dean in or near it, no sign of Dean _anywhere_ , _shit_. “He’s not here,” says Sam, and notices suddenly that the Impala’s gone, too, wonders if maybe the curse was on _him_ , if maybe he’s been moved somewhere else (except those are the same scrubby hills, he would swear to it) or lost some time or something, he's got to be missing something, whatever it is is right under his nose and if he wasn't so goddamn _tired_ \--   
  
“You’re standing right next to him,” the woman says, frowning, and every time she speaks, she sounds a little clearer, like she’s not used to talking and had to get back into the swing of it, like she’s--  
  
Shit. Like she’s not human.   
  
“Uh,” says Sam again. “Uh.” Yep. That’s very eloquent.  
  
“He looks different, too,” says the woman, and makes this weird face.  
  
“He--” says Sam, and then turns back to the Volvo. _It’s green_ , he thinks. The Impala’s gone and--  
  
“Are you saying,” he starts, and really there’s no reason this should be so hard to believe, because if Dean can get turned into a girl then why not a-- “are you saying that this car is. Uh.”  
  
“1979 Volvo 262,” she says, and makes that face again, and Sam realises she’s trying to smile, but hasn’t quite figured it out yet. “Dean.”  
  
Sam looks from the car that used to be his brother to the girl that – he’s getting more and more sure – used to be his brother’s car. This is quite possibly the freakiest thing that’s ever happened to him, and there’s only one thing he can think of to say.  
  
“But it’s a _Volvo_ ,” he says.  
  
\----  
  
Driving Dean is – weird. Actually, driving at all is pretty weird, because Dean’s been kind of possessive about the car lately, and Sam’s been relegated to shotgun even when Dean’s injured or exhausted or just plain distracted. But driving _Dean_ \-- oh God, that means he’s _inside_ Dean, right? Sam’s foot comes down involuntarily on the accelerator, and the car lurches forward with a growling complaint.  
  
“Sorry, sorry,” says Sam, and wonders if Dean can hear him. Cars don’t have ears, right? _That’s right, Sam. You know why cars don’t have ears? Because they’re not_ alive. But then, does that mean that Dean’s--  
  
“You think too much,” says the Impala, and Sam has to bite his tongue to stop himself from yelping. It’s one thing having to deal with the fact that his brother is now apparently a Scandinavian family car, but having his _own_ family car watching him while he’s doing it is really, _really_ disconcerting.   
  
“Can you--” Sam starts, and wonders if he’s more crazy for talking to the car that used to be his brother or the woman that used to be a car, then decides that really, once you’ve got to that level of crazy there’s no need to be competitive about it any more, “can you hear?”   
  
The Impala puts her hands up to her ears, and Sam shakes his head quickly. “I mean, when you’re a car. Can you hear what we’re saying? When Dean’s talking to you?”  
  
The Impala smiles, and she’s got it right this time. Apparently, she’s a fast learner.  
  
“He’s a horny son of a bitch,” she says.  
  
Oh yeah. Real fast.  
  
\----  
  
  
When the girl opens the door, she grins like a maniac to see Sam standing there with the Impala behind him. “Oh. Em. Gee,” she says, and Sam winces and tries _really hard_ to believe that Dean didn’t sleep with this girl, but the problem is, he knows Dean did, because otherwise they wouldn’t be here.  
  
“It worked!” the girl says, and Sam scowls at her and hopes that she’s at least over eighteen. “How do you like that, huh? You’re not even pretty!” she crows, stabbing a finger in the direction of the Impala.   
  
Sam glances back. The Impala raises a slow eyebrow. “I’m a classic,” she says.  
  
The girl snorts, and Sam figures maybe it’s time to get on top of the situation. “What did you do?” he asks, doing his best to loom, although really, this situation is so ridiculous that looming seems kinda melodramatic.  
  
“Gave him a taste of his own medicine,” the girl grins.  
  
“Oh,” says the Impala, “you were a car, too? A Trabant, perhaps?”   
  
“A what?” says the girl, then, “What?”  
  
“You turned my brother into a car,” says Sam, deciding that discretion is probably not the better part of valour at this point.  
  
“Uh, no,” says the girl. “I turned him into a girl. See?”  
  
And that’s just great. About the only thing that this situation had going for it was that it was original, and now that’s down the tubes.  
  
“That’s not my brother,” says Sam, and then he steps back so that the girl can see the car. “ _That’s_ my brother.”  
  
“Um,” says the girl, and then looks up at Sam. “But it’s a _Volvo_.”  
  
\----  
  
As it turns out, the sort of girl who can manage to turn a nice, simple genderswap spell into a – what, species-swap? Except that cars totally aren’t a species, so that’s not going to work, but anyway, whatever you want to call it, Sam is pretty sure it’s _complicated_ , and it turns out that the sort of girl who can cast a spell that complicated without even meaning to is also the sort of girl who has no idea how to uncast it again. In fact, the only thing she seems to know is that there's a time limit to reverse the spell before it becomes permanent, but of course she doesn't know what the time limit _is_ ( _and Sam's not panicking, he's not_ ). Sam makes a mental note to have a talk with his brother about the kind of girls he picks up, once Dean’s capable of talking again. Or picking up girls, for that matter. Although Sam supposes that, in his current condition, Dean could probably manage to pick up a Swedish soccer mom or two.  
  
“I don’t like her,” announces the Impala from the passenger seat. “She’s stupid.”  
  
Sam rolls his eyes. Figures the car learned all her social skills from her owner. He glances in the rear-view mirror, catches a glimpse of the girl – Mandy, he thinks, or maybe Candy – scowling, and sighs. “Yeah, well, apparently Dean liked her a little too much,” he says.  
  
The Impala’s mouth tightens into a thin line, and she reaches forward to put on the radio. Ricky Martin booms through the enclosed space, and Sam waits automatically for Dean to curse and flick it over to the nearest classic rock station, except it doesn’t happen, because Dean’s not there. Or, OK, Dean’s _there_ , in fact, he’s completely surrounding Sam in a sturdy, reliable way (and that thought is – well, it doesn’t really bear examining any closer), but he’s not _there_ , and suddenly the fact that he’s sitting there with an incompetent teenage witch and an ex-car and _no Dean_ hits Sam in the chest so hard he can’t draw breath.  
  
“This music sucks,” says the Impala, sounding so much like Dean for a moment that Sam turns his head sharply, but then, of _course_ she sounds like Dean, he’s the one who was always talking to her. “Make it different.”  
  
Sam stares at the radio, and for a moment he thinks maybe Dean will do it, maybe Dean can communicate with them through the radio like some whacked-out version of Herbie or something, because surely, inanimate object or not, _no way_ Dean would put up with Ricky Martin playing in what is, for all intents and purposes, his head.  
  
 _She’ll make you take your clothes off and go dancing in the rain_ , sings Ricky, and Sam swallows his disappointment and turns the dial until he hits a college rock station. He doesn’t pretend to himself it’s anything other than a challenge. _Come on, Dean, come the hell on_.  
  
College rock lasts for five long, Deanless minutes before the Impala wrinkles her nose and reaches out clumsily, fumbling with the radio. Thirty seconds of screeching static later, Alice in Chains is filling the car and the Impala is settling back happily like all’s right with the world, and all Sam can do is clench his fingers tighter round the steering wheel ( _Dean_ ), because it’s _not_.  
  
\----  
  
Sometime around three a.m., Sam's wondering what it would be like to fall asleep at the wheel and wrap his _brother_ round a tree when the Impala leans over and says, "I could kill her for you."  
  
Sam's so startled he actually feels his ass leave the seat (his _ass_ is sitting on _Dean_ , God). It wasn't that he thought the Impala was asleep exactly, he'd just -- forgotten she was there. "Kill who?" he asks, hoping to God he misheard, because that's really not the kind of thing you want to hear in the middle of the night, even when it's not coming from someone who really probably doesn't count as human at all.  
  
"The one who did this," the Impala says, and Sam glances in the mirror to see Mandy (or Candy?) sleeping soundly, then risks a sideways look at the Impala. Her eyes are fixed on him, and he feels kind of like a deer in the headlights.  
  
"What?" he says, turning back to the road ( _sorry for crashing you, Dean, I would have been concentrating on driving, but your car was homicidal and it was really distracting_ ), then, "No, Jesus, no, why would I want you to kill her?"  
  
The Impala doesn't stop staring. "She's made it harder."  
  
"Made what harder?" Sam asks, though he's not sure why, because the answer is _everything_.  
  
"Protecting you," says the Impala, like it's nothing, like it's perfectly natural to say something like that without a joke or an insult attached.  
  
"Dean protects me," Sam says, without thinking, and then swallows. He hasn't slept for over two days, his back aches and there's grit in his eyes and all he wants is his brother back. It doesn't help that this conversation is pretty surreal, but then, given the circumstances, it'd be weirder if it was normal.  
  
The Impala settles back in her seat, finally taking her eyes off Sam, and Sam sags a little in relief. "Dean is a Volvo," she points out, and Sam can't help thinking she's got a point.  
  
\----  
  
It really _is_ a deer in the headlights that brings it all home to Sam, and he would probably have noticed that little irony if he wasn't so busy trying to fight off the dizziness and nausea that apparently comes along with almost ramming your brother into a fucking higher vertebrate.  
  
"Sam," says the Impala, but she sounds like she's underwater, and Sam can't feel his fingers _oh God oh Jesus I could have killed him_.  
  
"Sam," she says again, and this time he's vaguely aware of hands peeling his fingers off the steering wheel, and he tries to let go, but he doesn't seem to be able to. "You need to sleep," says the Impala, and Candy says something in the back that's probably _no shit, Sherlock_ , but Sam's not listening, he's not _listening_ , he needs to fix Dean because there's a time limit and oh God ( _what if it's already too late_ ).  
  
"Sam." The Impala grabs his head, one hand on each side, and turns him to face her. "You need to sleep," she says again.  
  
"Can't," whispers Sam.  
  
"I'm not asking," says the Impala, and she reminds him of Dad suddenly, except for how instead of anger at being ordered around he just feels relief.  
  
"Can't leave Dean," he says, suddenly envisioning waking up in the morning to find Dean gone, stolen by joyriders, burned by rioters, eaten by monsters (OK, maybe he really _does_ need to sleep).  
  
"OK," says the Impala. "It's OK."  
  
And it's not OK, but the thought of what a fender-bender would translate to for Dean's real body is not OK, either, not OK _at all_. Sam thinks about getting one of the women to drive, but there's no way he trusts Mandy to get them there in one piece, and he's pretty sure the Impala doesn't have a driver's licence, so eventually he sends them to get a motel room ( _don't kill her, OK?_ says Sam, and the Impala looks disappointed). Sam crawls into the back seat and draws his knees up to his chest, thinking he's never going to be able to sleep with Dean like this, how can he _sleep_? The weird thing is, though, the seat is warmer and more comfortable ( _comforting_ ) than most beds he's slept in the last few months, but that's probably just because he's so damn tired, right, a twenty-seven-year-old Volvo _can't_ be that well-designed, right?  
  
Sam never finishes his musings on that question, because, as it turns out, he's perfectly capable of sleeping after all.  
  
\----  
  
“But it’s a _Volvo_ ,” says Bobby, and Sam puts his head in his hands. The Impala sidles up behind Bobby.  
  
“Sam doesn’t like Volvos,” she says.  
  
“Well, they _are_ kinda dorky,” agrees Candy, and the Impala raises an eyebrow that couldn’t be more of a _bitch, please_ if she wrote it in three-foot letters of fire.  
  
“It’s not that I don’t _like_ Volvos,” Sam says, trying to head off the argument and glancing at Dean, hoping he’s not offended (except for how Dean can’t _get_ offended seeing as how Dean is a _Volvo_ ), “it’s just I’d rather he, you know. Wasn’t one.”  
  
The Impala looks Dean over critically. “I always thought he’d be a ’69 Mustang,” she says.  
  
Mandy wrinkles her nose. “Ew,” she says. “Old.”  
  
Sam is suddenly very, very aware that even in her new shape, the Impala could probably snap Mandy’s neck like a twig. “Bobby,” he says pleadingly, and Bobby sighs and shrugs.   
  
“Come with me, little lady,” he says to Candy. “Let’s see if we can’t figure out which spell it is you used.” He casts a sympathetic glance back at Sam, and Sam sinks to sit on the ground with his back up against Dean’s front drivers-side door.  
  
“This is so, so fucked up,” he mutters.  
  
The Impala’s stretching her arms and legs and examining them carefully. “How many horse power is this body?” she asks.  
  
Sam closes his eyes. “Um. A third?” He tries to imagine how much power a third of a horse could put out, but gives up when his brain gets stuck on whether the third in question would have any legs or not.  
  
“Oh.” The Impala looks disgruntled. “How fast can it go?”  
  
Sam _really_ doesn’t want to be having this conversation. “It’s stupid, OK?” he says. “Human bodies are slow and weak and that’s why we need cars, that’s why we have computers and airplanes and guns, because we’re imperfect, OK? Is that what you want to hear?”  
  
The Impala stares at him for a moment, then frowns. “Then why do you want Dean to be human again?”  
  
Sam digs his fingers into the dirt and wonders how to explain any of this to someone who wasn’t even _someone_ twenty-four hours ago. “Because I miss him,” he says finally, hoping it’ll be enough.  
  
The Impala takes two strides over to Dean and runs her fingers along his roof thoughtfully. “I think I do, too,” she says.  
  
Sam looks up, squinting into the sun. “Yeah?”   
  
She frowns, then nods. “Yes. Now stop being a whiny bitch and go help Bobby.”  
  
Sam scrambles to his feet. “You sure you’re not a girl Dean?”  
  
The Impala just smiles.  
  
\----  
  
It takes Mandy three tries to get the Sanskrit pronunciation right, which really makes Sam wonder how she managed to turn Dean into a car in the first place, and also, what the hell the Sanskrit word for _car_ is anyway. Bobby’s a hell of a lot more patient with her than Sam would be, and Sam can only thank Christ that the Impala has to stay within a circle drawn in the dust for the duration of the spell, because he figures Candy would be history even if the Impala _did_ draw the short straw and the third of the horse without any legs. All the same, on the third try, there’s an almighty thunderclap pretty much exactly like the one that knocked Sam down back in the parking lot almost a day ago, and Sam finds himself on his back again, only this time, when he sits up, he sees the Impala parked across from him looking pretty much like an Impala, and a very confused-looking Dean on his ass in the dirt. Dean is neither a girl nor a car, and Sam feels something let up in his chest that he didn’t even know was clenched.  
  
“Dude,” says Dean, “what the fuck was that?”  
  
Sam checks that he still has all the equipment he’s used to having (because it’s not like Candy’s spells haven’t gone wrong before), then clambers to his feet and offers his hand to Dean. “You turned into a car,” he says, because he’s too damn tired to beat around the bush.  
  
“I, uh.” Dean scratches the back of his head. “What?”  
  
“Yep,” says Sam. “Oh, and the Impala? She – it – turned into a woman.”   
  
Dean stares at him like he’s insane, and Sam’s not totally sure he isn’t. “What the hell, Sam?”  
  
Sam sighs. “Ask Mandy,” he says. “I’m going to bed.”  
  
\----  
  
Sam’s been trying to sleep for maybe five minutes when Dean comes in and drops down on the other bed. He’s quiet for a while, but he’s definitely human, and that’s enough for Sam. Finally he rolls over, facing Sam’s bed.  
  
“Was she hot?” he asks.  
  
Sam shrugs. “She had a black vinyl dress,” he says.  
  
“Jesus,” says Dean. “I always miss all the good stuff.”  
  
He’s quiet for a while again, and Sam’s almost drifted off to sleep when he speaks again. “Sam?”  
  
“Mph,” Sam replies.  
  
“What kind of car was I?”  
  
And Sam realises maybe the day wasn’t a total disaster, after all.


End file.
